City turns to cisterns to provide water for fires

Sunday

Jun 27, 2010 at 12:01 AMJun 27, 2010 at 1:09 AM

Looking back on the big fire that destroyed most of Ocala's downtown business section on Thanksgiving Day 1883, town officials realized that more sources of water would be needed to combat any future fires.

Looking back on the big fire that destroyed most of Ocala's downtown business section on Thanksgiving Day 1883, town officials realized that more sources of water would be needed to combat any future fires.On the morning the fire was discovered at the corner of Main and what is now Silver Springs Boulevard, there was only one major source of water in the immediate vicinity, a pump on the square. Most private pumps and wells were located well away from the downtown area.Ocala had grown up without ever developing a general water system, relying instead on private wells and pumps. Bucket brigades at a pump on the downtown square were totally inadequate to slow the progress of the wind-driven fire that consumed wooden-frame buildings one after the other.After assessing the fire damage, town officials began responding to public demands to organize a fire department and buy needed equipment. They really didn't have the money to do that much, but they went ahead anyway.What really stumped officials was how to find the money to provide for an adequate water source for future fires in the downtown section. The cheapest solution was a plan for a system of underground cisterns that would hold water and refill during rains.Two cisterns were dug in 1884-85 on the courthouse square, with the insides sealed with native rock, brick and concrete.The city council purchased a pumper wagon, which it couldn't pay for immediately, and staged a big demonstration of how it would work during a fire.Editor Frank Harris of the Ocala Banner wasn't impressed by the demonstration. Instead of shooting a stream of water over the tops of new buildings, the pumper produced only a thin stream.The crowd that had gathered for the demonstration went home disappointed, Harris wrote.Frustrated city officials found the pumper was defective and sought a replacement, a difficult task for a horse-drawn wagon that wasn't paid for yet.There also was a dispute between the city council and the county commission over who was going to pay for constructing the cisterns. The original agreement was for each to pay half of the cost.The county had agreed to the cisterns only if one of them was made available for public use. Commissioners said there had been a need for years to provide a place for country people to water their stock when in town on business.In late 1885, the city council was under fire because it had done nothing about the so-called public cistern on the southeast corner of the square. No pump had been installed to get water out of it so that horses could be watered.Lashing out at the council for not complying with its agreement with the county, Harris also noted that another cistern already was in a bad way. A piece of one side had broken out and the cistern no longer would hold water.The county commission agreed to repair the cistern if the city council would pay the cost. When the matter was brought before the council in 1885, the councilmen refused to pay the bill.Harris, who also was serving as Ocala's mayor, wrote in the Banner that the council would not even promise to pay for repairs or assume liability for any problems that might develop."Why the council has refused and continues to refuse to comply with the very reasonable terms of its contract we are at a loss to conceive," Harris wrote in his commentary.The reasons why the councilmen wouldn't budge on the issue were never disclosed publicly, but it may have been simply a lack of money. After all, the city had only recently begun to collect city property taxes after a two-year hiatus while Ocala waited for legislative approval of a new charter granting taxing authority.The use of cisterns for water storage was common in outlying areas, all built and maintained with private money. Even more common were wells, with an occasional hand pump to draw water.Even the later installation of water systems throughout the Ocala area was done privately. The date of the first of these systems isn't known for sure, but they began after the cistern controversy between the city and county governments.Even as late as the 1940s, some of these private water systems were still in use, although by that time most were hooked into the city's water network. The most extensive use of private systems would be found in West Ocala, where there also was a proliferation of out-houses.During the 1880s, the town's problem was not the availability of water, but the availability of water in the places where it would be needed to fight an outbreak of fire, one of the most common destructive elements of the time.

An avid Marion County historian, David Cook is a retired editor of the Star-Banner. He can be contacted at 237-2535.

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